The big event of the day for me is a speech to several hundred people at
the International Investors Northeast Mining Conference. Although every
other speaker at the conference is talking about investments, my speech is
my typical campaign stump speech


beginning with my standard opening: "I am running for President because
no Democrat or Republican is going to stop the relentless growth of the
federal government. Only a Libertarian is going to free you from the income
tax, unlock the door and let you out of Social Security, and end the insane
War on Drugs." Although the speech interrupts the normal flow of the
conference, it is very well received.

After the speech I fly to St. Louis for the Missouri LP convention, which
will begin tomorrow evening.

The Zogby Poll began carrying me in its April poll, in which I showed up
at 0.8%. In May it dropped to 0.7%. But today Zogby released a new poll
(http://www.zogby.com/features/featuredtables.dbm?ID=8):

The 1.1% is, of course, below the standard margin of error. The
significance is more in the fact that they're tracking us than in the
precise figures at this point. It is also noteworthy that I'm not very far
behind Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan, two candidates who began their
campaigns with far greater name recognition and a lot of attention from the
press.

As though the Zogby Poll weren't enough good news for one day, Gallup
releases a new poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr000524b.asp):

These polls are reported widely in the wire services and newspapers, and
on political websites


such as Reuters, Fox News, and others. The Zogby poll treats the race as
being five-way 
listing Bush, Gore, Nader, Buchanan, and Browne. And many of the major
political websites have narrowed their coverage to these five candidates
alone (with one or two continuing to carry Alan Keyes, who hasn't yet
dropped out of the race). All this is still before we have done any national
TV advertising 
which we hope to begin later this month.

We are being noticed.

This is a major breakthrough for the LP. It will help enormously to
overcome the "wasted vote" idea. Many Libertarians misunderstand
this issue, believing that people are afraid to vote for someone who
apparently can't win


and occasionally people even tell us that's the reason they won't
Libertarian. But it isn't the fear that we can't win that keeps people from
voting for us.

In 1992 Ross Perot had so discredited himself by election day that
practically no one in America believed he had a chance to win the election.
And yet 19 million Americans voted for him. And in 1996, millions of people
voted for Robert Dole knowing he had long since blown any chance of winning
the election.

At the same time, many people who felt much closer to Libertarian views
didn't vote for Andre Marrou in 1992 or for me in 1996. Why not?

Because they didn't believe votes for a Libertarian would count for
anything. Voting for Perot in 1992 told the world that one was fed up with
the Republican and Democratic parties. And people voting for Perot knew
their votes would be counted and reported on TV on election night and in the
newspapers the next day. At the same time, if you voted Libertarian, it
might take three weeks to find out how many votes the Libertarian candidate
received.

Getting into the public opinion polls means we're being treated as
relevant to the contest


that our support can affect the outcome. Even though the pollsters believe
neither Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader, nor I has a chance of winning, they think
the votes we get might affect who does win the election. So it's important
for them to know how much strength we have, and to try to gauge whether we're
getting our support at the expense of Bush or Gore.

If I can stay listed in the polls through election day


and even better, if I can build a larger position in the polls 
many people may conclude that voting Libertarian is no longer a wasted vote.
They may decide that it's an effective way 
in fact, the only way 
to protest the Drug War, to demand that the 20,000 gun laws be repealed, to
assert their desire to be freed immediately from the Social Security Ponzi
scheme 
statements that can't be made by voting Republican or Democratic.

In other words, this entry into the polls may be the start of a new era
of Libertarian politics. It is an indication that we're starting to get the
visibility we have craved for so long.

Friday, June 2, 2000


St. Louis

I have five interviews today


three here in St. Louis and two phone interviews elsewhere.

The first is twenty minutes with Charles Brennan on KMOX in St. Louis. He
has a sidekick whose name I don't learn. Both of them are friendly and give
me a chance to say what I want, although neither shows any sign of agreeing
with me. I'm able to get so much into the brief time that I ask for a tape
afterward, so we can put the interview on our website as an introduction to
my campaign.

Next is a ten-minute taping with Bill Phelan at KTRS. I presume the
interview will be broadcast later in the day. He seems content to let me say
all I want, and so I'm able to cover a lot in a short time.

I then talk with Alison Barker of the Associated Press in West Virginia.
She has already visited my website and wants just a few details to finish
her story as an introduction to my appearance at tomorrow's West Virginia LP
convention.

Next comes about 45 minutes with Eric Stern, a young reporter for the St.
Louis Post-Dispatch. He asks me whether the press missed something in last
year's coverage of George W. Bush's possible drug use in his young days.

I say, "I know what you're getting at, and I agree with you. The
real issue is George Bush signing laws that impose draconian sentences on
drug-users for doing what he apparently did when he was younger. Would
George Bush be a better person today if he had served ten years in prison
for cocaine use? Should Al Gore have spent five years in prison for smoking
marijuana in the 1960s? If not, why are these men so determined to impose
such sentences on others?"

The day's final interview is about 40 minutes on KIQ in Salt Lake City.
The host is Joe Jackson, with whom I've never talked before. He has a guest
host, Ken Larson, with whom he apparently argues a lot. The interview goes
very well. At the first break, both mention how much they like what I say,
and Larson says, "He has my vote." Jackson says, "You just
lost him 100 votes by saying that."

In the second part, Larson says, "I realize you want to get
government out of the school business, so that parents could choose the kind
of schools they want. If you were the principal of a private school, what
kind of a school would it be?"

I say, "I'm not an educator, and I don't presume to know what kind
of school would be best


anymore than I know how a computer should be built. What's important is that
the government stay out of it, so we can have a wide choice, so you can
choose what's best for you, and so you can make a change when you don't get
what you want."

He says, "I love that answer. I'm tired of politicians who act as
though they know everything and presume to know what's best for the rest of
us."

Saturday, June 3, 2000


St. Louis & Charleston, West Virginia

Today there's a forum at which Don Gorman, Barry Hess, and I discuss our
campaigns and answer questions. Eric Stern of the Post-Dispatch, who
interviewed me yesterday, is in attendance. There are about 70 people in the
audience


close to twice as many as when I spoke at the Missouri convention two years
ago.

After the forum Alan Underdown rushes me to the airport to catch my
flight to West Virginia. Unfortunately, I won't get to hear what should be
interesting talks by Mary Ruwart, Doug Bandow, and Sarah Cotham.

I get to the airport about a half-hour before departure time. Because it's
a small-company flight on a prop plane, handled by Northwest, the sky cap
can't check in my bag at the curb. I go inside and encounter a line at the
ticket counter that seems to stretch halfway back to downtown St. Louis. I
don't see how I'll ever make my flight


and missing it would mean missing my speech in West Virginia.

I finally manage to bribe a sky cap to handle the checking of my bag. The
flight takes off on time, and takes me to
Detroit


where I change planes and grab a sandwich (turkey, so I don't continue
loading up on calories and fat).

At Charleston, West Virginia, John Brown


former state chair 
picks me up at the airport. We arrive just as people are starting to eat
dinner at the evening banquet. There are only 25 people in attendance, but
they are good-looking folks. John Brown, Mr. & Mrs. Wallace Johnson,
Richard Kerr, and others have done a lot to provide a first-class image for
the party.

Just before I begin to give the after-dinner speech, the music starts up
in the banquet room next door


flooding our room with "Y-M-C-A, Y-M-C-A." Combined with a baby
who's up way past her bedtime, my voice has a lot of competition. But I
stand close to the audience and the speech goes very well.

Afterward, an auction of interesting items raises about $2,400 for the
party.

Sunday, June 4, 2000


Charleston & Nashville

I arise early to catch a flight to Cleveland, changing planes there to
get to Nashville. I'm met at the airport by Pamela and our nephew, whose
visiting us for the week. Unfortunately, the only time I'll have with him is
a few hours today, as I'm leaving tomorrow for Dallas, Houston, Corpus
Christi, and Detroit.

Monday, June 5, 2000


Dallas

The most memorable event for me today is Continental Airlines' moving me
up to first-class because no exit-row seats are available for my flight to
Dallas. Otherwise, it's an uneventful day. I spend most of it in my Dallas
hotel room, catching up on some overdue campaign writing projects.

Tuesday, June 6, 2000


Dallas

I'm in Dallas for two days of work with speech coach Bill Cakmis of
Talent Dynamics. I have been speaking publicly since my high school days


over 50 years ago. And I've taken various kinds of lessons off and on during
all those years 
public speaking classes in high school and the Army, a private tutor for a
couple of years in the 1960s, and isolated coaching sessions occasionally
from various pros. But there's never enough. Like most people, I don't enjoy
watching tapes of my TV performances or listening to tapes of my radio
performances, because the defects in my work jump out at me.

I don't expect to be perfect, but I'm always determined to get better and
better. I want to improve my delivery for public speeches, my facility to
respond quickly and clearly in rapid-fire TV interviews, and the ability of
my voice to hold the attention of radio listeners.

Bill Cakmis proves to be an excellent coach. Usually, I expect coaching
to be more like drills


repetitive practice to overcome weaknesses I'm already aware of. But as we
view video tapes of my speeches and TV interviews, he points out a great
deal about effective communication that hadn't occurred to me. And unlike
some advice, almost everything he says makes perfect sense to me. I find
myself taking pages and pages of notes.

At the end of each of two 7-hour days, I'm thoroughly exhausted


mentally and physically drained. But I've learned a great deal that I can
put to use immediately.

And more will come with practice. Next week and the following week, I'll
be at home, preparing for the national convention and the campaign to
follow. Each day I'll spend at least an hour practicing my new techniques
before a video camera, so I can make sure I'm benefiting from the coaching.

Wednesday, June 7, 2000


Dallas

As of today a third national public opinion poll has started tracking my
candidacy. The Rasmussen Poll (http://www.rasmussenresearch.com/html/poll-804.html)
releases the following results for a poll taken on June 5:

The only drawback of this poll is that no party labels are attached to
the names


so publication of it in newspapers won't help build name recognition for the
Libertarian label.

Unlike Zogby and Gallup, who also include me in their polls, Rasmussen
polls every day and releases those results daily. Over the rest of this
week, these polls will show my support at a steady 1.1%


suggesting that there's little margin of error. That doesn't mean these will
be the results in November, only that they're fairly representative of the
populace as a whole at this time.

Thursday, June 8, 2000


Dallas & Houston

I'm back on the radio today. I have a 45-minute interview with Eric Hogue
on KTKZ in Sacramento. Before the interview, he tells me off-the-air that he
is a life-long Republican who is rethinking the Drug War and has had a
number of discussions about it on his show. Almost the entire interview is
devoted to the drug issue. It's obvious that he's pretty much made up his
mind that the Drug War is a big mistake.

There are three callers. The first two are for ending the Drug War. The
third is a former marijuana smoker who is in favor of the War on Drugs. Eric
asks him whether he quit smoking marijuana because he was afraid of going to
prison. When the man says "No," Eric asks what the point is of
threatening people with prison for taking drugs, and the man has no answer.
Eric asks me to comment, but I say only, "You've said it all."

Near the end of the interview I try to broaden the scope of the
discussion by saying that Libertarians oppose the Drug War because we
recognize that nothing is ever solved by turning problems over to people
like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, or Teddy Kennedy.
And when we vote for Republicans or Democrats, we just encourage them to
make government bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive.

Eric says that he's with me on the Drug War, but we will have to have a
discussion later on matters like abortion. And he says that if abortion is
murder, Libertarians ought to be opposed to it. My parting comment is that I
do oppose abortion, and that's why I don't want the government on my side in
opposing it


since the government has made such a mess of the War on Drugs and the War on
Poverty. He acknowledges the logic of that as we say goodbye.

At mid-day, I catch a plane to Houston, where I have a few interviews
tomorrow.

I receive an e-mail from Scott Lieberman in California, telling me that
ABC-TV News this morning had a commentary suggesting that third party
candidates could affect the outcome of this year's election. While the
commentator was talking, the bottom of the screen listed several third-party
candidates, including Don Gorman and me.

Carl Wiglesworth has been a radio friend and supporter since long before
I first decided in 1994 to run for President. Today I have a 15-minute
interview with him on KTSA in San Antonio. As I'm working on my e-mail in my
Houston hotel room, I can't understand why the station hasn't called for the
interview. Then it dawns on me that I have the hotel phone line tied up with
my computer. I get on my cell phone and call the station


and after three tries, I finally get through and the producer puts me right
on the air.

Carl is his usual friendly, good-natured self. And I'm happy to hear that
he'll be at this Saturday's Texas LP convention.

A caller asks how I feel about free trade with China. I say I believe you
should be free to buy whatever you want from whoever is willing to sell to
you. And if you want to make a statement against the Chinese communist
regime, you're free to boycott Chinese products. Either you have the power
to make these decisions for yourself or someone like Bill Clinton will make
them for you. I prefer that you make your own choices.

Politics1 is a major Internet political site.
On June 8, 2000, the site contained the following report about the
presidential race and the polls:

According
to the Newsweek poll


conducted within the past few days 
Bush leads Gore by a very tight 44% to 43% vote. The latest Reuters/Zogby
poll shows a similarly close race: Bush: 42%, Gore: 39%, liberal activist
Ralph Nader (Green): 4%, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (Reform): 2%,
financial author Harry Browne (Libertarian): 1%, nuclear scientist John Hagelin (Natural Law): 0% and Undecided: 12%. As Nader, Buchanan, Browne, and
Hagelin are likely to each be on the ballot in most if not all states, more
pollsters should start including them in future surveys.

A further indication that this year we will be far more visible in the
mainstream political world than we were in 1996.

Friday, June 9, 2000


Houston

Seven interviews are scheduled today.

The first is at 8am with "The Captain & Anthony" on KCJJ in
Iowa City, Iowa. The two hosts are comedians. I like these shows. I have no
trouble trading gags with them, and such hosts always seem to be very
receptive to our message of getting government out of their lives. In about
20 minutes, we cover the income tax, the Drug War, and foreign policy


but they are most enthusiastic about getting out of Social Security. They
offer their own examples of how much better off people could be by keeping
their own money and saving or investing it for themselves.

Incidentally, everytime Social Security "privatization" is
discussed, the current system is compared with the stock market. This
comparison is intentional and it's promoted by those who oppose changing the
current system. Although millions of people have stock-market investments
and would like to be free of Social Security so they can buy more stocks,
other millions of people may be afraid of the stock market. So privatization
opponents continually refer to stock-market investments because they seem
risky.

The truth is that ending the Social Security tax means you can put your
money wherever you want it


in a bank savings account, in government bonds, in stocks, in foreign
currencies, or anywhere else you want. Even a bank savings account will
provide a much better return than Social Security, and 
unlike Social Security 
it will build an estate you can leave to your children.

So I rarely mention stocks when discussing Social Security. I usually
say, "You could assure a comfortable retirement simply by putting 5% to
10% of your paycheck into a bank savings account


or by having your employer do it for you. Even if you know nothing about
investing, you could easily take care of yourself 
if the politicians would simply leave you alone."

At the conclusion of the interview, one of the hosts asks me to sum up in
one minute why they should vote for me. I say, "Because voting
Republican or Democrat is telling the politicians to keep doing what they're
doing


keep intruding further on your life, keep making government bigger, more
expensive, and more oppressive. Only by voting Libertarian can you say, I'm
mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.'"

Next is a quick 5-minute interview with Lou Penrose at KNWZ, the news
station in Palm Springs, California. He is very friendly, and encourages
people to visit the website for more information. Most of the conversation
is about Social Security. He mentions that Al Gore has said that George Bush's
plan to allow citizens to put 2% of the 15% Social Security tax in their own
accounts is "risky." I tell him, "Al Gore says it's risky; I
say it's puny. You should be free to keep every dollar you earn


and spend it, save it, or give it away as you think best, not as Al
Gore or George Bush thinks is best for you."

The third is a taped interview of 10 minutes with Rod Rice of the news
department at KTRH in Houston. He will play excerpts of it during the day on
news broadcasts. I'm not as good in this type of interview as I should be.
He's looking for short, one-sentence or two-sentence soundbites, and I tend
to talk in paragraphs. But the more of these I do, the better I'll get.

Then it's into the city for a couple of interviews. The first is at the
Houston Chronicle


with Associate Editor Frank Michel, political columnist Jane Ely, and
reporter Alan Bernstein. Such meetings with editorial groups are always
fascinating, as literate people pose questions from many different angles.
But even though I enjoy those meetings, I'm never very optimistic that they
will do us a lot of good. I would trade a dozen such interviews for 10
minutes on a cable TV network 
where I can tell my story my way, rather than having a journalist choose
what to pass on about me.

But, lo and behold, this coming Sunday Jane Ely and Alan Bernstein will
both publish articles about me  and while Ely's is typically patronizing,
Bernstein's is excellent. Even the title is good: "Practicing what he
preaches, Libertarian Party hopeful refuses matching campaign funds."

The final paragraphs of the article are:

"The goal, Browne

explained, is to make sure voters know that
Libertarian candidates for any election are the ones who would reduce
government the most.

He opposes federal
government efforts to eradicate poverty and illegal drugs, saying they have
not only failed, but made the problems worse.

'Because I have seen what
the war on drugs has done in escalating drug use and crime in his country,
the last thing I would want is the government on my side to stamp out
abortion,' the mild-mannered 66-year-old said. I mean, if you enlisted
the government to try to stop abortions, probably within 10 years men will
be having abortions.'

He said the two major
political parties are hypocritical on abortion, because so-called pro-choice
lawmakers would not let a woman choose to use marijuana to ease the pain
from cancer or glaucoma, and so-called pro-life candidates didn't oppose the
U.S. bombings that killed civilians in Kosovo.

As part of the Libertarian
philosophy, Browne calls for a federal retreat from education, welfare and
other programs that he says are not authorized by the Constitution. He would
abolish the Social Security payroll tax and withdraw U.S. troops from
foreign peacemaking missions.

The article will be posted to our website if we can get permission from
the Houston Chronicle.

Next is a visit to KTRK-TV, the local ABC-TV station. Sara Greer tapes me
answering some questions, from which she will put together some soundbites
for the evening news. I'm still not as good at coining soundbites as I
should be (meaning I haven't improved much in the last two hours), but
generally it goes well.

Back at the hotel I'm on the phone for 25 minutes with Tony Trupiano,
sitting in for Gene Burns on the Talk America radio network. Tony tells me
he began paying attention to the Libertarian Party during the last
presidential campaign and has continued to understand the libertarian way
more and more


to where he now says, "It's about our keeping more of the money that is
ours to begin with." He is very supportive and keeps repeating the
website address and phone number. After the interview is over, he calls back
and offers to help with the campaign.

The last interview of the day doesn't come off. It was supposed to be 15
minutes on the phone with Mike Laurel of Metro Networks, a radio news
service. But we miss each other on the phone and the interview never occurs.

Today the Gallup Poll releases a new poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr000609.asp).
Although I wasn't included in today's preference poll, I was one of five
candidates given favorable/unfavorable ratings. Gallup says, "Fewer
than one in five Americans venture an opinion of Browne (with 5% feeling
favorably and 14% unfavorably). Two-thirds of the public, 66%, say they have
never heard of him while 15% have heard of him, but express no
opinion."

The "unfavorable" rating doesn't bother me. As we do more
advertising, more people will begin to understand what we're offering. Until
then, they may be confusing me or Libertarians with someone else, or they
may have heard only the most outlandish ideas about Libertarians.

Speaking of outlandish ideas, I've written before in this journal about
Don Feder's May 15 Boston Herald article "Goofy May Be a
Libertarian" (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/don05152000.htm),
and my article in response to it (posted on our website). In his article,
Feder mentioned that our national convention will be held in an Anaheim
hotel, but suggested it would be more appropriate to hold it at nearby
Disneyland. He said, "What could be more fitting for these
laissez-faire visionaries than to convene in the theme park's Fantasyland?
Goofy might even be available for their national ticket."

It turns out that the Herald's website was flooded with dozens of
objections to the article. And now Art Olivier, candidate for the LP
vice-presidential nomination, has reprinted over 80 of those responses on
one web page (http://www.vp2000.org/__Goofy_for_Pres_/__goofy_for_pres_.html).

The responses are instructive because they reveal a great deal of
Libertarian writing talent. Some of the letters are very well-written. For
example, here are some excerpts from one by Matt Siegel:

Bravo to Don Feder's
proposal that the Libertarian Party nominate Goofy as our candidate for
President of the United States. Goofy has name recognition, and a solid
record of public service. . . .Goofy never put people in
prison for using the same drugs he used when he was younger, while at the
same time freeing violent criminals who actually do hurt people. Goofy never
stood on a podium surrounded by armed guards and told people they aren't
entitled to protect themselves from the aforementioned violent
criminals. . . .

Goofy never made
participation in the Social Security System mandatory, then stole all the
money from that system, resulting in a negative return for the investors.'
Goofy never screwed up public education, welfare, Social Security, and then
set his sights on screwing up healthcare next. . . .

Yes, Goofy does stand out
from the rest of the lower life forms you have a choice of voting
for. . . . He certainly is a Libertarian, and I'd be
proud to vote for him. The problem is, Goofy doesn't want to run for public
office. Like most Americans, he has better things to do.

The collection of letters is marred by a few that contain bad language
and incivility. But they demonstrate what a wealth of talent is available in
the libertarian movement.

Saturday, June 10, 2000


Corpus Christi

I arrive in Corpus Christi in mid-morning, relieved that yesterday's
forecasts of bad weather throughout Texas seemed to be inaccurate. On
arrival, I run into radio host Carl Wiglesworth and his producer-wife
Laurie. Despite our many phone interviews, I've never met them in person
before


and it's a pleasure to finally do so.

Carl is the luncheon speaker. He delivers an interesting talk on the
changing natures of traditional radio and Internet radio, but it is
interrupted by the collapse of a man in the audience. Carl's speech is never
completed. The man is rushed to the local hospital. Later one of the
Libertarian doctors who attended to him at the luncheon reports that he's
not expect to survive.

On a happier note, Geoffrey and Nancy Neale have done an excellent job
organizing the convention. I didn't think to ask for an official count of
the attendance, but I would guess there were at least 100 people present.

In the afternoon, author Mary Ruwart (running for the U.S. Senate seat
against Kay Bailey Hutchinson) and I conduct a candidate workshop. Mary
offers some excellent suggestions for dealing with tough issues.

I provide an overview of how I believe a campaign should be conducted.
You must start by defining your goals. Saying you're running to win isn't
enough. The odds are against your winning at this point in the party's
development, so you must make sure your campaign produces other gains for
the libertarian movement and the LP if you don't happen to win. A goal might
be a significant and noticeable increase in the vote total, to inspire the
press and public to take future Libertarian candidates more seriously.
Another goal might be the recruitment of many new members to the party.

Whatever the goals, they must be realistic and they must be carefully
defined. Once having set them, you have to decide which people in your
electoral district are the best prospects for meeting your goals. You won't
be able to reach everyone, so you need to spend your limited resources of
time, money, and volunteers getting to those who will do the most good for
you. You may want to focus on the leaders of organizations whose members
should have the greatest reason to vote for you, or perhaps the geographical
areas within the district that are most susceptible to your message.

You then need to craft a few key issues and proposals (three is usually a
good number) that provide compelling reasons for your best prospects to vote
for you. The best way to circumvent the "wasted vote" syndrome is
with proposals that will improve people's lives significantly, but that
Republican and Democratic candidates are opposed to. One example is to
appeal to people who are already taking care of their own retirements by
proposing the complete and immediate end to the Social Security tax. Another
is to try to reach those who have been personally touched by the Drug War,
proposing an end to it. Still another is to appeal to gun owners by
proposing the repeal of all the existing gun laws that put innocent citizens
at a disadvantage to armed criminals. In each of these examples, your
Democratic and Republican opponents will offer nothing remotely comparable
to what you're proposing.

In other words, there are two important qualifications in selecting
issues. First, you should be proposing something that will improve people's
lives dramatically, not arguing against someone else's proposals. Second,
each proposal should be uniquely Libertarian


that is, it should be something that no Democrat or Republican would
ever propose. Stay away from such things as a flat tax, sales tax, Medical
Savings Accounts, vouchers, or anything that other politicians might
propose. Whatever you may think of such ideas, they don't give anyone a
compelling reason to support you. Why should someone vote for you, since you
seem unlikely to win, when there's a Republican or Democrat proposing the
same thing and has a chance to win?

Lastly, use the Libertarian label profusely. Put it on your literature
and signs, and use it in your ads. Refer to a proposal as a
"Libertarian proposal" or say "The Libertarian solution to
this is to . . ." Make sure people know that the good
things you're offering are Libertarian proposals.

If you avoid using the word "Libertarian" and you don't win the
election, what have you gained? You will be just one more politician who
didn't win. And after the election there will be no tangible benefit from
your campaign.

If you want your campaign to achieve something, it must be part of a
greater, continuing process. You can leave a legacy of greater awareness
that Libertarians are the ones who are trying to set people free. This will
help whoever carries the Libertarian banner in this race next time


whether that's you or someone else.

One of my campaign goals is to expose every American to the idea that
Libertarians are the ones who want smaller government. We may not be able to
attain this goal completely this year


but the closer we come to it, the better off we'll be. I also want to
achieve sufficient name recognition for the Libertarian label that many
voters trying to decide whom to vote for in local races 
and not recognizing a single name in a race 
will vote for the Libertarian because the voter has heard me on radio or TV,
or has seen one of our ads.

Later in the afternoon, there is the usual presidential candidate forum
with Don Gorman, Barry Hess, and me. This time we're joined by Dean Tucker
of Texas. The forum is delayed by several hours because Don and Barry
encountered severe storms flying in from New Mexico


and they had to be rerouted with a series of flights that seemed to take
them all over Texas.

Ah, the joys of travel. You, too, can be a presidential candidate and see
the USA.

At the evening banquet, Mary Ruwart gives an excellent speech describing
ways various government functions could be handled in the free market.
Afterward, Geoffrey Neale does a good job of fund-raising for the Texas LP.
For an auction, my publisher Liam Works donates a proof set of my new book The
Great Libertarian Offer, which brings $120.

Today a letter appears in the Seattle Times, written by Travis Pahl
(http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/editorial/html98/lett10_20000610.html).
Apparently a Times editorial had urged that Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader be
included in the presidential debates. Mr. Pahl's letter says that
Libertarian Harry Browne should be included


pointing out that the LP is a much bigger party than the Green Party, and
the LP will be on the ballot in all 50 states.

He closes by saying, "With a Libertarian in the debates, you would
actually have a candidate who stands for a smaller, limited government. All
the parties The Times wants in the debates are for large government. All
they differ on is what part of our lives the government is going to control.
Unfortunately, it appears that we will end up instead with a boring debate
between two pro-government candidates."

This is a good example of how easy it is to take a news item or editorial
in the newspaper and use it to gain publicity for the campaign.

Sunday, June 11, 2000


Detroit

I'm in Detroit for a "Slash the Pork" barbecue picnic at
Barbara Goushaw's home. There are 150 people present. The purpose is to
raise money for BARC (Ballot Access Retention Committee), a project to
produce enough advertising for the presidential campaign to get the 26,000
votes necessary to retain ballot status in Michigan.

Don Gorman, Barry Hess, and I each give short speeches and answer
questions. Then Barbara does a little fund-raising. Bruce Smith is the
winning bidder on a proof set of The Great Libertarian Offer, paying
$400. Not only is $10,000 raised (from ticket sales and fund-raising) for
BARC, but everyone I talk with seems to be having a very good time.

Monday, June 12, 2000


Nashville

Home at last after spending almost all of the past two weeks on the road.

I have just one interview today


a half-hour with Charlie Sykes at WTMJ in Milwaukee. He invited me to appear
after a campaign volunteer sent him our 30-minute video. Today he begins by
describing himself as a recovering liberal and now a "small-l"
libertarian. Although he apparently is in tune with our ideas, he is
relatively non-committal 
content to simply ask questions and let me make my points.

Today WorldNetDaily, the large online news publication, publishes my
article, "We're from the Government and We're Here to Improve Your
Software." It is available at the campaign website.

The Great Libertarian Offer video began running today on a Little Rock
cable access channel, thanks to Glen Schwarz and the Arkansas Libertarian
volunteers. It is scheduled to be aired seven times.

Wednesday, June 14, 2000


Nashville

After taking Tuesday off, I'm back at it.

My first interview is an hour with Matt Alsdorf of www.PlanetOut.com, a
gay website. He asks many questions that would provide excellent
opportunities for someone like Al Gore to pander. My answers are different,
of course, and Matt seems to understand them very well. He knows we don't
want to use the force of government to solve social and political problems.
And he comprehends without trouble my point that the power that's used for
your benefit today can easily be used against you tomorrow.

I make the point that reducing government to its constitutional limits
will eliminate the ability of one group to use government to force its views
on other groups. Not only will that mean that gays no longer will have to
fear moralists, it means that moralists will no longer have to fear gays


making for much more harmonious relationships.

He asks whether we have any openly gay people on the campaign staff. I
say that I don't believe so. Then I remember that Stuart Reges and Rob
DeVoil are both gay. Because we don't look at people in terms of
gay/straight, it is easy to forget who's who.

The interview probably came about because of the prodding of Sacramento
volunteer Amanda Swafford, who kept after PlanetOut to pay attention to me.
Our volunteers are doing a great job in making the Libertarian presidential
campaign much more visible.

Matt Alsdorf will be writing an article from the PlanetOut interview, and
it should be on their website soon. Meanwhile, a poll on the site asks the
question, "Which presidential candidate would make the most interesting
lunch companion?" As of today, the results are:

Although they included me in the poll, they don't yet include me among
the candidates profiled throughout the website.

The second interview is with Terry Langeland of The Colorado Daily


a newspaper circulated primarily to University of Colorado students. The
interview is meant to be a half-hour, but it lasts close to an hour. We
cover a multitude of issues. Near the end, I say, "If you have any
sympathy for my campaign, I hope you'll stress my stance on the Drug War.
Young people need to be particularly concerned about this. Many of them
smoke marijuana, and they could easily get busted and receive a sentence of
10 or 15 years 
just for buying or selling pot, or driving someone to a drug
transaction."

As the Green Party is having its convention in Denver next week, he says
he won't publish his article until just after the LP convention, so it won't
get lost among the coverage of the Green Party.

In the evening, I have an online chat at Evote.com


one of the big political websites. I think it's the first such chat they've
had, and it isn't completely smooth. The event is slow getting started, and
the questions and answers seem to be posted very slowly. I'm a fast typist,
but it doesn't help much.

However, the session goes very well. I'm able to give short, snappy,
one-paragraph answers to questions. About 900 people are in attendance. I'm
very glad I was invited. Our website has a link to a complete transcript of
the session (in the "Hot Campaign News" section).

Today WorldNetDaily published a letter from me on the Drug War. It began:

Ted Wegener's letter to the
editor says, Libertarians see the improper way the drug problem is being
waged and they throw the baby out with the bath water when they say solve
the problem by legalizing drugs. By advocating the legalization of drugs
they are advocating the destruction of society.'

Mr. Wegener apparently
doesn't understand: We have to throw the baby out with the bath water
because this is Rosemary's Baby we're talking about.

The letter goes on to list the problems the Drug War has created,
pointing out that "These tragedies aren't the result of bad
administration; they are inherent in any attempt to enforce victimless-crime
laws." It finishes by saying that the Drug War is living on borrowed
time, and I expect to see it ended within five years.

Recently, Justin Raimondo wrote an article on his website AntiWar.com in
which he said that Pat Buchanan was the only possible choice for an anti-war
activist. So yesterday I emailed a note to him pointing out that I am more
reliably anti-intervention than Buchanan is. I attached the foreign policy
chapter from The Great Libertarian Offer, which will be published
next week.

Knowing that Justin is pretty libertarian, I said,

The principal difference
between Buchanan and me is that he believes a wise leader (he) can decide
properly when government should overrule your freedom


as in when foreign intervention is warranted, when you should be prevented
from buying what you want from overseas, when your constitutional liberties
should be abridged in the name of fighting drugs or immigration, and many,
many other areas.

I believe neither Al Gore,
George W. Bush, Ralph Nader, nor Pat Buchanan is qualified to run your life


and neither am I. I believe in you.

Today his column reproduced my letter. He went on to say,

As one of the few remaining
movement activists who remember the good old days before Jesse Ventura and
Bill Maher were somehow inducted into the libertarian ranks, Browne is
practically the only movement leader of any stature who still retains an
interest in the Libertarian Party as a vehicle for social change. He is a
charming and knowledgeable man, and a good candidate. (He is head and
shoulders above his critics  pygmies to a man  who carp and complain
that he isn't "purist" enough: this about a man who would
immediately get rid of most government as we know it!) As for his foreign
policy positions, they reflect the consistent opposition to US military
intervention overseas that has been encoded in the Libertarian platform
since around the mid-1970s  thanks to Murray N. Rothbard and Williamson
Evers, who in the early days had to fight off the Randians and others who
wanted to enlist the party in the Cold War.

His view of today's LP is very sour, however. And he objects to the fact
that the LP had accepted as a member the head of the Jewish Defense League


which he considers to be a terrorist organization. He reiterates his support
for Pat Buchanan.

Thursday, June 15, 2000


Nashville

The day begins on a happy note with a 30-minute radio interview with
"Lionel" (Michael Lebron), who is now broadcasting on the
full-time Internet talk network, EYada.com. He introduces me as "My
candidate." Among the many issues we cover is the gun laws. I point out
that the last place guns should be outlawed is at schools. If one person at
Columbine High School had had access to a gun, many of the slain children
would still be alive today.

Later I have a half-hour radio interview with Rick Knobe at KSOO in Sioux
Falls, South Dakota. This is my first encounter with him. He is a good host


skeptical but very friendly 
and at the end of our time he says he would like to have me back several
times before election day.

Friday, June 16, 2000


Nashville

Peter McWilliams died on Wednesday. Today I wrote a eulogy for him and
sent it to WorldNetDaily for publication. It will be published this coming
Sunday, June 18 (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_browne/20000617_xchbr_learning_f.shtml).
We also transmit it via LibertyWire and it is posted on the website (in the
"Hot Campaign News" section).

Peter was a very intelligent, thoughtful man. I mention in my eulogy that
he bore little animosity toward his opponents; he considered bad ideas, not
bad people, to be the enemy. I was fortunate to know him, and I will
certainly miss him.

Sunday, June 18, 2000

We're still in the polls. However, the polls aren't as stable from day to
day and company to company, which inspires less confidence in their
accuracy.

Rasmussen


which polls daily 
had me dropping from 1.1% on June 6 all the way down to 0.3% on June 11, and
then rising back gradually to 1.4% on June 15. Now I've been at 1.2% the
past three days. As of today, the poll shows:

I will be home through Saturday, preparing for the general election
campaign that begins right after the Libertarian national convention, June
30 - July 3.

I have been criticized sometimes because our campaign has scheduled many
events for after the convention, and because I have focused far more on
outreach to non-Libertarians than on getting the nomination


as though I had already won the party's nomination.

This isn't because I am presumptuous (well, not about this, anyway). We
are doing this because you simply can't run a worthwhile presidential
campaign in only four months, from July through November. During that brief
period, you can't possibly attract enough media and public attention to help
the Libertarian cause.

That's why I've been doing radio & TV interviews for the past three
years. And that's why we've done a tremendous amount of public outreach
since I made my official announcement in February.

During that time, I have had the following media appearances:

9 national TV shows
37 national radio shows
74 big-city radio shows
33 smaller-city radio shows
3 local TV shows
8 national press interviews, published in hundreds of newspapers
39 local press interviews
11 Internet interviews or articles, plus tons of listings of my views on
political websites.

Our 30-minute video has been played dozens of times on commercial or
cable-access TV stations.

One benefit of all this exposure is that we're going into the general
election campaign with much greater name recognition (both for me and for
Libertarians in general) than in 1996. I'm listed in the public-opinion
polls. Most of the major political websites carry information on me.

All this didn't just drop in our lap. It took a lot of hard work by a lot
of people on our campaign staff to make this happen. And we wouldn't have
been in this position if we had waited until after the nomination was
secured to start cultivating the media and the public.

I mention this because I have a number of projects to deal with this week

 all
looking ahead to after the convention. Many websites and organizations have
asked for answers to questions they are providing to presidential
candidates. In addition, many of them will publish position papers on
various issues, and I need to prepare those.

The League of Women Voters' political website, DNet.org, already carries
information from me on a number of issues. However, these have been picked
up from wherever they could find them. I need to write better, more succinct
issue statements on all the topics they cover.

In addition, the FreedomChannel.com has offered to allow me to do a
series of 90-second video spots on various issues. We have scheduled the
taping of these spots for Washington, D.C. on July 8. I need to write
scripts for them.

I also need to write a campaign platform, as called for in the LP bylaws.
And, as always, I need to spend a good deal of time on the phone raising
money.

This week will be devoted to getting as many as possible of these
projects done


in addition to doing a few radio interviews.

Tuesday, June 20, 2000


Nashville

Just one interview today. It is an hour with Joe Jackson of KIQ in Salt
Lake City. I was on his show a couple of weeks ago, and he received emails
asking to have me back. He usually has a guest host, and today it is Bob
Madrid, a staunch Republican.

Jackson stays pretty much out of the conversation, as Madrid argues
politely with me about a number of things


most notably the Drug War and foreign policy. I feel that I'm getting the
better of most of the arguments, but I'm not there to win arguments; I'm
there to persuade. I don't expect to change Madrid's mind, but I do hope I'm
persuading listeners to come around to the Libertarians.

Wednesday, June 21, 2000


Nashville

Just one interview scheduled today, and it doesn't come off. The show is
scheduled for 8:10am. The producer calls at 8:20 and says an in-studio guest
from the previous hour was late and is on now. She wants to reschedule for
8:40. I say okay, but she doesn't call back until 8:50, and then says we
will begin at 9:00 after a break. Unfortunately, I have other activities
scheduled and I beg off. She says she will call the office to reschedule, as
they are determined to have me on.

An email from Brian Mulholland is forwarded to me. He is one of our 4,500
campaign volunteers. He says that the Los Angeles Daily News devotes the
letters section on Saturdays to a single topic. On June 3 the topic was
Social Security, and the paper printed letters from both Brian and his
brother Barry.

Brian's letter describes an encounter with a woman who said she was
"pro-choice." Brian asked whether she thought one should be free
to choose or not choose to be in Social Security. Barry's letter, printed
right after Brian's, provides an example of the ideal letter in three small
paragraphs:

If a private individual came up with a scam like Social Security, he
would be arrested, prosecuted, and his program' would be exposed for
what it is: a pyramid, or Ponzi, scheme.

What to do about it now? Well, the federal government has trillions
of dollars in assets it has acquired for activities unrelated to its
actual constitutional functions. I agree with Libertarian presidential
candidate Harry Browne's plan to sell off those assets, and use the
proceeds to buy lifetime annuities for those truly dependent on Social
Security. Those annuities would be offered by private companies who
don't break their promises, for unlike the politicians, they are
criminally liable if they do.

And the rest of us would be freed from the 15% Social Insecurity tax
forever.

This letter includes the three essential elements for such a letter or
for a call to a talk show: (1) Present a specific proposal that will make
the prospect's life much better, so that he has a reason to care about the
subject. (2) Identify this as a "Libertarian" proposal, to help
people come to realize that Libertarians are the ones who want to benefit
them by getting government out of their lives. (3) Urge the prospect to do
something specific to make things better


in this case, the implication that one should vote for Harry Browne for
President.

Thursday, June 22, 2000


Nashville

Today's one show is with "Uncle Nasty" on KBIP-FM, a
hard-rock-music station in Denver. We tape a 15-minute interview, to be
played on his show later in the day. The discussion revolves almost
completely around the anti-methamphetamine bill that just passed the Senate
and is being considered by the House. It would authorize searches and
seizures of your property when you're not present, and without even telling
you the spies have been there. And it would outlaw Internet discussions of
illegal activities


such as how to grow medical marijuana.

Nasty says he asked an aide to Senator Hatch, a sponsor of the bill, for
clarification. The aide said the bill doesn't create new government
intrusions; it merely legalizes what the government is doing already. Well,
that ought to make us all sleep better.

I point out to Nasty that by letting the government transgress the
Constitution in any area, we open the door to this kind of tyranny.
The only solution is a program that will force the federal government to
stay within constitutional limits in all areas. And that's why the
Great Libertarian Offer is so important; it will end all the illegal
activities of the federal government.

He says he wants me back after the convention to discuss my whole
platform.

Friday, June 23, 2000


Nashville

My only interview today is with Chris Reed of the Orange County Register
in Santa Ana, California. The Register is one of several publications in the
Freedom Newspapers chain. The paper is the dominant newspaper in Orange
County (near Los Angeles), competing with the Los Angeles Times' Orange
county edition. The Register probably is the most libertarian daily
newspaper in the country. In fact, Alan Bock, one of its columnists, will be
moderating the presidential debate at the LP convention next week.

In keeping with the paper's philosophy, Chris is very sympathetic. His
questions deal mainly with the problems a third-party candidate


and a Libertarian candidate in particular 
faces in getting attention. I point out that we have not built our party on
celebrities or billionaires, and so it will take us longer to become
prominent. But because we're the only party offering to make it possible for
the average person to control his own life, we have a very good chance of
prevailing eventually. And very possibly by the end of this decade.

Saturday, June 24, 2000


Nashville

Just one show today. It is 20 minutes or so with Tim Winchester and Mike
Ferguson at KCWJ in Kansas City, Missouri. They ask a number of questions
about the issues, and seem very interested.

The last question asked is why anyone should vote Libertarian. I say that
if you vote for George Bush or Al Gore, you are telling the politicians you
like big government, you like people controlling your life, you like the
fact that government keeps getting bigger, more expensive, more intrusive,
more oppressive.

You may think you're voting for a Democrat or Republican in order to keep
his major opponent out of the White House. But voting against someone
is always a wasted vote, because the recipient will treat it as an
endorsement of his entire big-government political career.

The only way you can say you've had it with big government is to vote
Libertarian. It is the only vote that can't be misinterpreted.

Tomorrow Pamela and I will fly to New York, where I have three days of
good media events scheduled. Then it's on to Anaheim for the LP convention,
and from there to Washington for more media.

Sunday, June 25, 2000


New York City

Pamela and I arrive in New York City for three days of media


both national and New York events.

We arrive in the evening, in time to have dinner with my 83-year-old
cousin. She has always been intensely interested in politics, and tonight we
find the conversation split evenly between politics and cats. I realize that
maybe we Libertarians have finally arrived as a full-fledged party when she
tells me that she probably will vote for me because I'm the lesser of three
evils.

Monday, June 26, 2000


New York City

Pamela and I are joined for the first two days of media events by Gene
Molter of Newman Communications, the campaign's public relations firm.

Today's events being at 7:15am with a 15-minute phone conversation with
Larry Goldstein on WVOX in New Rochelle in nearby Westchester County. The
interview is nothing special. Larry lets me say whatever I want without
interruption or argument, but I end the interview feeling that not much has
been achieved.

Later in the morning, we drive out to the far end of Long Island for a
press interview. On the way, I talk with Kelly Beaucar of
ConservativeHQ.com, a conservative news website. Kelly has written about me
several times before, and now she is doing a story leading into this weekend's
Libertarian national convention.

She asks why we're getting more attention this time than in 1996. I point
out that the party is bigger and better financed, we have a large volunteer
organization that is putting pressure on news sites to cover us, and we have
all that was achieved in 1996 as a starting point to build on. In addition,
the presence of Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader in the race helps turn
attention toward third parties in general, and we're benefiting from some of
that. She wishes me luck as we hang up.

Another interview, with Jose Santiago at WBAI news, was scheduled to be
held by phone on the way to Long Island. But I can't connect with Santiago,
and the interview never happens.

We arrive in Melville for an interview at Newsday, a large daily
newspaper. The paper started in the 1970s (as I recall) as strictly a Long
Island daily. But when the New York City newspapers begin folding, leaving
only three dailies where once there were six or seven, Newsday began to
circulate in Manhattan and other nearby areas. It is generally a quite
liberal paper.

My interview is with Larry Levy, an editorial writer, and Phineas Fisk,
assistant editor of the editorial page. Coincidentally, Larry's cousin was
one of the founders of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party


and Phineas' stepson is a staunch Libertarian. The two are quite friendly,
they understand what I'm saying, and they even get my jokes. But who knows
what they will write  if anything?

The traffic is unbearable, and we're late getting back to the city. I am
supposed to be on Sean Hannity's radio show from 4 to 5, but we don't make
it to Manhattan until after 4. So, instead, I'm on from 4:30 to 5:30. Sean
is half of Hannity & Colmes, on whose TV show I will appear this
evening. He is the conservative and he always tells me how he agrees with me
on so many issues, but I go too far  especially in wanting to end the
Drug War.

Today, prior to my appearance, he is railing against Sunday's Gay Pride
Parade in Manhattan. On the air, I mention that he's always talking about
government being too big. But when it comes to making specific proposals, it
never seems to be to shut down the Department of Education or get the
government out of health care, for example, but rather to rail against gay
demonstrations, push for a flag-burning amendment, fight to get the 10
Commandments displayed in government schools, or advance some other issue
that won't make anyone freer or government any smaller.

The conversation is friendly but very intense on both sides. When he
talks about using government for good purposes, I tell him that's a fantasy.
No one will ever ask him to design or run a government program; that will be
done by politicians for their own political interests, and the ideal program
that he imagines will in fact turn out to be just another bad government
boondoggle.

More important, lately I've realized that I sometimes let interviewers
keep the conversation too much on abstract issues and policy questions


and not focus on the importance of voting Libertarian. So today, I keep
coming back to the point that a Republican vote (since Sean is a Republican
with a largely Republican audience) is telling the Republicans you don't
mind that they keep making government bigger, and that only a Libertarian
vote will tell them you aren't going to take it anymore. The show goes quite
well, and I'm quite pleased with how easily I was able to return over and
over to the importance of voting Libertarian.

In the evening I'm on the Hannity & Comes show on Fox News TV. Both
Sean and Alan (Colmes) have been very good to me  giving me plenty of
airtime. I will be on the last two segments of the hour-long show.

The middle portion of the show is with Jim Nicholson, Republican National
Committee chairman, and a Democratic Congressman. When Nicholson comes into
the Green Room with a large entourage, one of his companions is Cliff May
 a former Libertarian whom I haven't seen in several years. He's
determined to introduce me to Jim Nicholson, which he does. I point out that
Cliff is a unique individual  the only person in the world ever to defect
from the Libertarians to Republicans, sort of like defecting from the U.S.
to Cuba. Nicholson is good-natured about this. Only later does Pamela point
out to me that Nicholson and I met four months ago at a studio in
Washington. Apparently, neither of us remembered that historic meeting

Nicholson's on-air interview is about Al Gore's fund-raising at the
Buddhist temple and the lack of an independent counsel to investigate it
(perhaps only the 3,547th time the show has covered this subject). Once
again, the film footage of Al Gore at the temple is shown over and over 
and the participants argue endlessly, with two or three talking at once.

When it's time for me to head from the Green Room into the studio, I turn
to the four Nicholson people sitting there (another three are inside the
studio), and I ask, "You folks are all Republicans, right?" They
nod. I ask, "And you're all for smaller government, right?" And
they say yes. So I say, "Why is it that Republicans run for office
promising smaller, limited government, but when your party chairman gets a
chance to tell the world on TV what Republicans want, he doesn't propose
ways to make government smaller; instead, he goes on endlessly about Al Gore's
fund-raising crimes or a flag-burning amendment or anything in the world
except something to make government smaller?"

One woman answers me, saying "Because we have only a tiny majority
in Congress." I remember during the Reagan years they used the excuse
that they didn't have any majority in Congress. I didn't really
expect a logical answer to my question, but I couldn't resist asking. As it
turns out, the woman who answered was Mrs. Nicholson, but I didn't know it
at the time.

My segment on the show goes very well. Again, I keep bringing the
conversation back to the idea that if you want smaller government, voting
Republican or Democratic is a wasted vote


because it tells the party you vote for you will never punish it for making
government bigger. At the end of the show, all four men working in the
studio come up to me, one at a time, to tell me they agree with me and
intend to vote for me. The fact that two of them are black is particularly
encouraging, because we hear so often that Libertarians have nothing to
offer blacks. In fact, blacks, whites, men, women, gays, straights, rich,
poor  all of them want to be free, free from politicians trying to run
their lives.

After the TV show, we ride in Alan Colmes' car to his radio show at WEVD.
As usual, we get along very well on his show  and he is very supportive,
although he is a liberal and disagrees with parts of the Libertarian
approach. All the callers but one are opposed to me, but I try to side with
their concerns and then point out how much better those concerns could be
handled by getting government out of the picture. I don't believe any of the
callers were converted, but I hope some of the other listeners were.

Tuesday, June 27, 2000  New York City

We have another full day of media in New York.

The first is back at Fox News TV. I have a 5-minute live interview with
David Asman, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer and now a news
reporter at Fox. In the course of the interview, he asks whether I believe
there are very many Americans "who hate the federal government as much
as" I do. I point out to him that I don't hate anyone, but I do feel
sorry for people who expect the government to deliver what it promises. In
the quick interview, we cover a lot of issues and I get the chance to
emphasize the importance of voting Libertarian. After the interview, he
tells me off the air that he's about 85% libertarian.

The next interview is with Gordon Deal at Metro Networks. Metro, among
other things, provides news services to independent radio stations around
the country. Gordon tapes a conversation with me from which he will extract
soundbites to feed customer stations. He asks a lot of questions about
various issues. I keep bringing the matter back to the question: who will
control your life, you or the politicians? I keep pointing out that we need
to take power out of the hands of the politicians and put it not in the
hands of "the people"  but in the hands of each individual
citizen, to live his life as he thinks best.

During the interview I notice there is a woman standing behind me and off
to one side, just barely in my field of vision. I assume she's waiting to
use the equipment when Gordon is done with our interview. But I run into her
on the way out, and she tells me, "I really like what you had to say. I
wanted to hear it all. I wish you the best of luck."

On the way to our next in-person interview, I have a 15-minute interview
by phone in the car with Jennifer Stayton of WAER-FM in Syracuse. She is
very friendly, but not necessarily supportive. She asks what makes
Libertarians different, and I provide the standard answer  that we're the
only ones who aren't trying to control you life. We're the ones who want you
to be free to live your life as you think best, rather than as George
Bush or Al Gore thinks is best for you.

We then meet with John Fund, an editorial writer at the Wall Street
Journal. John is a libertarian who finds himself defending Republican
positions in print and in guest appearances on TV talk shows. He is very
sympathetic to what we're doing, and he offers a number of suggestions for
promoting a debate with Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader, and getting it
telecast by one of the cable news networks.

I mention to him that it was a Libertarian landmark in 1996 that a Wall
Street Journal editorial took the trouble to say that Harry Browne should not
be in the presidential debates. No one had bothered to mention our
candidates before. I also chide John that Investors Business Daily and
several daily newspapers did endorse my being in the 1996 debates. He
implies that there's a good chance the Journal's policy will be different
this year.

Our next stop is at CNN's radio network where I have a 20-minute taped
interview with Gary Baumgarten. He is extremely friendly. And after the tape
stops, we talk for several minutes more. He says he supports most of my
positions  especially my opposition to the Drug War. He mentions that he
once was a police reporter in Detroit, and saw first-hand the destruction
caused by Drug War. I've found that almost all liberals


and many conservatives 
oppose the Drug War. This, of course, is contrary to the position of liberal
and conservative politicians.

Wednesday, June 28, 2000


New York City

With no late night show last night and no early show this morning, I get
a good night's sleep. My first interview is at 9:40


a 5-minute phone interview with Kevin Keenan, News Director at WBEN in
Buffalo. There appear to be more interviews with news departments than in
the last campaign, which I think might be a good sign. It apparently means
that Libertarian politics is becoming newsworthy, instead of just
entertaining.

The interview with Kevin Keenan is brief and crisp. As often happens, it
starts with the question "Who is Harry Browne?" In situations like
this, knowing that the interview will be very short, I want to get off the
subject of me and onto the subject of voting Libertarian as quickly as
possible.

So I say, "I was in the investment world for 30 years


writing books, consulting, and producing a newsletter. Like so many people,
I also didn't vote for 30 years, because I knew that whether the Democrats
or Republicans won, government would just get bigger, more expensive, and
more intrusive. It was only in the early 1990s that I saw that public
opinion had shifted to the point that perhaps we could restore an America in
which you would be free to live your life as you want to live it 
not as Bill Clinton or George W. Bush or Al Gore thinks you should live
it." From there on, we're talking about politics, not about me.

The second interview, also on the phone, is with Robert Hennelly at WBAI-FM
in New York City. This is part of the Pacifica network


a group of several very liberal radio stations around the country. Hennelly
is amazingly sympathetic. He asks why I think it is that we have lost so
many traditional American freedoms in the last half-century.

The interview isn't on the air, or even taped. He merely wants to get
background material


apparently for a commentary he will deliver later, possibly using this
weekend's convention as a news hook.

I'm proud of the interview. Usually, I'm not a top-notch sound-bite
producer


speaking in paragraphs, instead of quotable sentences. But several times he
asks me to repeat myself so he can take down my thoughts word for word. One
time is when I mention Michael Cloud's phrase that the problem isn't the
abuse of power, it's the power to abuse 
that whenever you give good politicians the power to do good, you
automatically give future politicians the power to do bad. I follow that
with the point that when you give people the power to run other people's
lives, you attract the worst elements of society 
who use that power for their own purposes.

He also likes my oldie-but-goodie, "Given that the government's War
on Poverty has escalated poverty, and the government's War on Drugs has
expanded drug use and produced a terrible crime wave, any War on Abortion
will probably lead within ten years to men having abortions."

I then take a taxi from uptown New York to the southern tip of Manhattan
for a 30-minute interview with Malachy McCourt at WNYC, an NPR station.
McCourt is a jolly Irishman in his 70s, but a socialist through and through.
In 30 minutes we cover a lot of ground and the debate is intense but
friendly.

I mention that most people aren't old enough to remember when charity
hospitals were a staple in all American cities and doctors took care of
those who couldn't afford to pay. Now government has run the charity
hospitals out of business and buried doctors in red tape so they can no
longer make house calls. He says he thinks charity is demeaning, and much
prefers an impersonal welfare system.

I say, "What is more demeaning than taking money from people by
brute force to distribute to whatever groups are politically connected?
There's nothing benevolent about stealing money from families who will have
to deprive their own children in order to feed the coffers of bureaucracies
and politicians.

"You think the money's going to lift the poor out of poverty. But
low-cost housing projects benefit only the building contractors


often at the expense of the poor, who are kicked out of their homes in order
to build more expensive homes they can't afford."

By the end of the conversation, he acknowledges that government schools
are run more for the benefit of the teachers' unions than the students (and
he points out that this is why home-schooling is proliferating), that the
Drug War is a resounding failure and tragedy, that the U.S. government is
the world's bully. That doesn't mean he's no longer a socialist. But the
conversation goes so well that I ask for a tape


so we can put the audio on our website.

Through awful traffic, I take a taxi back to the hotel


taking better than an hour for the taxi to travel the ten miles or so.

Pamela and I take another taxi to LaGuardia Airport. We're catching a
plane to Atlanta, to connect to Anaheim, California, for the LP national
convention. The plane leaves the gate on time, but we go no further than the
runway. The tower holds the plane on the runway and gives no explanation. We
sit there for 4 1/2 hours.

While we're waiting, I make a note to prepare a position paper on airline
problems. The government operates the air traffic control system, and
governments own the airports. Passenger volume and numbers of flights
continue to expand rapidly, but airports are always years behind. There is
no increase in gates or ticket counters to handle the increased volume. So
flight delays abound and the lines at ticket counters get longer.

But who gets blamed for all this? The airlines, of course. And who has to
pay passengers for missed connections and other delays? The airlines, of
course.

Finally, the plane takes off and arrives in Atlanta a couple of hours
later, about four hours after our connection left for Orange County. We make
a plane reservation for the next morning and the airline pays for a hotel
room for the night


even though the airline probably isn't at fault.

Thursday, June 29, 2000


Anaheim, California

Pamela and I arise early and catch the plane to California.
Unfortunately, we don't have our luggage, so we can't change clothes and I
can't shave.

On the plane, two Libertarians from Georgia tell a stewardess who I am.
She asks for an autograph, and I wind up having my picture taken with all
the flight attendants. Later, as I'm getting off the plane, I scratch my
face and remember that I haven't shaved today.

We arrive at the hotel, check in, shower, change, and I get to shave.
With Stephanie Yanik and Steve Willis, we drive to Los Angeles for two
interviews. More heavy traffic. It takes about two hours to drive to KABC in
West Los Angeles. We arrive there for the Larry Elder radio show.

First, however, I have an interview with Hillary Johnson of Worth
Magazine, who meets me at the radio station. We talk about the ways
Libertarian proposals will give people more money to save and invest, and to
make their own choices. She seems to be very aware of libertarian ideas. But
who knows?

Then I'm on for two hours with my friend Larry Elder. As always, he
treats me as though I'm the only person in the world qualified to be
President.

Our only policy disagreement has been over foreign policy. He believes
the U.S. government should intervene in world affairs. I have said to him
(and I elaborate on it in my book, The Great Libertarian Offer) that there
probably never would have been a World War II if the U.S. government hadn't
intervened in World War I.

Larry says that he recently had a chance to talk with Henry Kissinger.
Larry told him of my attitude toward the World Wars, and asked him what he
thought about it. Kissinger considered it for a minute and then said,
"There's a great deal of merit to that idea. I tend to agree."

Back at the hotel in Anaheim, there's a pre-convention reception with a
few hundred people. It's wonderful to see so many Libertarians whom I may
not have seen in many months or many years.

Friday, June 30, 2000


Anaheim

At 9:30 a.m., the 2000 Libertarian National Convention begins. What an
exciting venue. Over a thousand Libertarians are here to select the party's
nominee, elect new officers, and celebrate our ideas.

Unfortunately, I can't listen to the speeches. There are many talk-show
hosts broadcasting from the convention and a lot of reporters


and I have a full slate of interviews.

The first is with Libertarian Jim Dexter, the Utah chair who has his own
radio show. During the interview we come back over and over to the
importance of voting Libertarian, rather than trying to vote for a winner.

Then there's a TV interview with Pamela Gentry of C-SPAN. We go out to
the C-SPAN bus, sitting in the alley behind the hotel. We talk for about 15
minutes. She says she's interviewing each of the Libertarian presidential
candidates, and wants the interviews to be personal profiles more than
discussions of issues. But I don't let it go that way; I try to bring my
answer to each question around to some way that a Libertarian proposal will
make your life better.

Back in the convention hall, I have a half-hour interview with Blanquita
Cullum on the Radio America network. I make the theme of the interview the
difference between controlling your own life and letting the politicians do
that.

We talk about gun laws and she mentions that Pat Buchanan stands up for
the 2nd amendment. I point out that Buchanan believes he should control your
life; it's just that on a few issues the choices he makes are similar to
what you'd choose for yourself. But he still wants to be the one that makes
the decisions. He wants to decide what you can buy from foreign countries,
what kind of industries should be protected, and so on.

Blanquita asks, "But what would you do about such things as human
rights in China?" I say, "If you think it's wrong to trade with
China, you can just simply not buy Chinese products. But if you give the
government the power to make that decision, you're letting Bill Clinton
decide what's right and what's wrong for you."

I then have a 12-minute phone interview with Tom Bustamante of the
website WallStreetNewscast.com. They want to interview every presidential
candidate and provide each interview as an audio link on the website. I'm
the first of the bunch. By this time today, I'm all fired up and flying
through every question. Surprisingly, Bustamante makes it a pure political
interview, with no particular slant toward the financial markets. The audio
interview is posted on the Internet at http://www.WallStreetNewsCast.net/usnews/harrybrowne.html.

Next it's another radio interview in the convention hall


this one with Ken and Rick Minyard, a father and son team on KFIV in
Modesto, California. Rick is an LP member, while his father is a Republican.
We talk about the possibility of being in the presidential debates. Ken
wonders what I would ask George Bush or Al Gore if I got the chance. I say,
"Would you be a better person today if you had spent ten years in
prison for your youthful indiscretions 
like the sentences you favor for young marijuana smokers?"

Then it's ten minutes with Brian Higgins, a Libertarian talk-show host on
Liberty Works radio network in Massachusetts. Because of technical problems,
the interview is cut short and we don't get a chance to cover very much.

The last interview is with Libertarians Gary Nolan and Lowell Ponte on
the Radio America network. Among other things, we talk about the people who
won't vote Libertarian because they're afraid it will swing the election to
the worst of the Republican or Democratic candidates. Gary tells how he
decided after the 1996 campaign that he could no longer vote Republican.

The C-SPAN people tell me the interview with Pamela Gentry didn't take
because of some technical problem. So we have to do it again. She asks the
same questions